Tarkosaurus Retch
The A.V. Club’s selection of 18 Particularly Ridiculous Prog-rock Album Covers illustrates why the early ’70s might be the most aesthetically unappealing period in history ever. I’m aware that some of the albums they spotlighted come later on, but you get the gist.
Forever My Girl
Long, long ago I can remember seeing a clip on Entertainment Tonight of a teenage Paula Abdul frolicking in some godforsaken low-budget musical set in a high school cafeteria. She looked dorky, the song was dorky, and the kitsch gods were smiling down on me. Eighteen-odd years later, I revisited it — and, yeah, it’s still hilariously awful. Little did Paula know that she and her feather-haired Van Nuys classmates from Junior High School (1978) would live on through the courtesy of YouTube. The entire 39 minute featurette can be found there, but you can get all you need from the first two minutes of the clip below — with Paula croaking out “we’re gonna have a party” to her singing, dancing friends. Plays sort of like a hybrid of The ABC Afterschool Special and a bargain basement Grease, you know?
Book Review: Art Out of Time
Dan Nadel’s Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969 arrived as a Christmas gift from my s.o., who bought it off my Amazon wish list after I blindly put it on there a few years back. Something about the cover design and the concept of trolling through old newspapers for comic obscurities appealed to me. For once a stab in the dark paid off, for this is a beautifully produced book chock full of eye-popping images — not only from the world of newsprint but from short-lived standalone comics as well.
The various comics collected here mainly tell me that the word “visionary” in the book’s title carries a wide definition. In some cases it might be a series that never caught on, while a few pages later a popular and long-running newspaper strip which wound up getting lost over time might be showcased. Some (like Gene Deitch’s Midcentury Modern Terr’ble Thompson) contain brilliant visuals supporting rather dull stories, while others crackle with subversive wit but are ordinarily drawn. A few others, like the work of Rory Hayes and Fletcher Hanks (who recently got his own anthology published by Fantagraphics), are so singularly bizarre they could have only come from one mind. Whatever their origins, all of the included comics are at the very least fascinating glimpses into the times they came from. Dan Nadel arranged the comics non-chronologically in loosely thematic groupings, so paging through them gives the reader an eclectic experience. Nice touch.
On another note, I want to point out how gorgeous some of those early, pre-WWII newspaper Sunday strips were. Being able to lay out a strip on an entire full page must have been a luxury that some artists undoubtedly used to full advantage — and you get to see a lot of lovely examples of this in the book. It’s especially heartening when looking at today’s pathetically scaled-down newspaper comics.
Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969 is available now from Harry N. Abrams. Buy at Amazon here.
Mexican House Numbers
A gallery of Mexican house numbers, via I Like. Sí, I like.
Cheap Thrill: Children’s Books 1957-69
You probably know this already, but we love to thrift. Lately I’ve been spending more time in the kids’ book section. Granted, pawing through endless filthy stacks of cheesy Disney tie-ins and bios of teeny bopper stars from ten years ago can get a little depressing, but the drudge is worth it when coming across that rare gem. Like the ones below, for example. In the future I’ll be scanning more of these and adding them to my flickr photo stream, but in the meantime enjoy these illustrated samples from kiddie books dating to my particular favorite era of the late ’50s through the early ’70s.
Jeffie’s Party, written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham, was published in 1957 and derives its considerable charm from Graham’s wonderful talent for portraying children at play. Her artwork reminds me a lot of William Steig’s New Yorker stuff from that same time. Spreads from Jeffie’s Party can be viewed here.
Tommy Visits the Doctor, illustrated by Richard Scarry, is another classic Little Golden Book that just gives me the warm fuzzies. The tale of a boy and a baby bunny visiting their respective doctors first came out in 1962, although the copy I got was an inferior mid-’70s reprint which may or may not be missing pages (Little Golden Books tended to do that). Accompanying the image below was the following: “The publishers hope that this little book will help prepare a child for his visit with the doctor. It was written by two people who have worked extensively with children, and it was illustrated by Richard Scarry, who believes that rabbits go to the doctor, too.”
Tell Me a Joke, from 1966, was illustrated by Bill Sokol in a semi-primitive style which looks remarkably similar to many contemporary artists’ work. I love the use of blue, yellow and orange spot color in the drawing below (and, yeah, the fact that the kid’s shirt pattern is very ’60s has a lot to do with it).
Though it’s not a particularly great example of children’s book illustration, the groovy 1969 back cover design for Whitman’s “Tell-A-Tale” books elicits this weird deja-vu feeling in me. I know I had several of these books as a kid, and based on the 35 cent cover price I’d guess that these were sold in supermarkets and drug stores. Note the presence of Little Lulu alongside Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and a horse which looks strangely like a forebear of My Little Pony:
Finally, we have a book that’s eluded me for the last 25+ years. At the age of eleven or twelve, I can remember being enthralled by a jokey little library book illustrated with simple yet elegant black line drawings. The drawings were accented with watercolor paints in a quasi-psychedelic rainbow of colors. In the ensuing years I could never remember this book’s title, but now I know: Arm In Arm, written and illustrated by Remy Charlip. This one was originally published in 1969 and has a trippy, vaguely European feel. Although the copy I found while thrifting was an inferior reprint published in smaller and cheaper form, you can definitely get a feel for Charlip’s (possibly weed-influenced) whimsy from one of the endpapers below.
It goes without saying that anyone interested should check out the Retro Kid and Eye Candy flickr groups for more of this kinda stuff. Now it’s onward to the next thrifting trip!
Electile Disfunction
Jeff of Tin Man fame shares his thoughts on voting in the N.Y. Democratic presidential primary. Like Jeff, it’s also my first time voting in my state’s primary and I’m taking it very seriously. The ballot arrived in the mail this week and now it’s time to do some serious homework on the candidates (For some reason — Republican conspiracy? — I never received a ballot in 2004). Unfortunately I don’t feel like I have enough info on everyone just yet to confidently cast a vote. The news media is covering this stuff like the Belmont Stakes: who’s winning? Who fell behind? Just tell me where they stand on the issues, dammit! I think both Clinton and Obama would make fine nominees, but Hilary has a lot of past baggage to overcome and Barack still comes off like a cipher to me (probably because I’ve only seen him giving speeches in that passionate yet “preaching to the choir” manner). I also want to investigate John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich further. Yes, it’s a lot of hemming and hawing over a single vote, but (Pollyanna mode) I like to believe that my vote represents more people here in Arizona who can’t or won’t be voting. Just keep in mind that whoever it is will be infinitely better than what we currently have. January 2009 cannot come soon enough!
Hitsville U.S.A.
We need our little and not so little indulgences every once in a while, right? I did a little post-Christmas splurge and bought The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6, a box set containing every A- and B-side of every 45 single Motown released in 1966. It’s … amazing. This is part of the ongoing effort by Hip-O Select to release every Motown single on year-by-year CD sets spanning the company’s 1959 to 1972 period in Detroit. Each set is neatly packaged with a hardback book and an actual 45 rpm single (the ‘66 one has The Four Tops’ “Reach Out”). Originally I was just planning on getting the ones covering the late sixties — but now that I can actually see what a fantastic job they did, I want them all! At a hundred bucks a pop, that might take a while.
Listening to this stuff in order, it’s interesting to hear how Motown slowly evolved during 1966. Often they’d have a stretch of really strong, classic singles followed by another stretch of obscure oddities or songs without that telltale “Motown” sound. Therefore you have plenty of Supremes, Vandellas, Temptations and Stevie Wonder alongside MOR singers like Billy Eckstine and Barbara McNair or a garage rocker from The Mynah Birds, a group which counted both Rick James and Neil Young as members. You can also tell that whenever an artist would have a hit, it would usually be followed with another single attempting to sound as much like the previous song as possible. This particular one contains Wonder’s “Nothing’s Too Good for My Baby” (”Uptight” part II) and The Marvelettes’ “You’re the One” (”Don’t Mess With Bill” redux), two tunes nearly as enjoyable as the hits they emulated. 1966 also saw the arrival of The Isley Brothers and Gladys Knight & The Pips, two A-list R&B acts who suddenly found themselves B-listers amongst the other Motown talents. We can’t forget the fabulously underrated efforts of Kim Weston, The Velvelettes and The Elgins, either! One thing that surprised me is that they used mono 45 mixes here, so the sound is not quite as full as what I’m used to. I’m something of a liner notes geek, and the annotations accompanying this set are really fantastic — each single has a great story behind it. A great set for a great Motown year; now I gotta save some dough for ‘67 (which, incredibly, was an even better year for them).
It’s All in the Game
I still consider myself a gaming neophyte, but from reading the reviews at various sites I could tell that Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros Treasure looked like the kind of quirky, under-the-radar sort of thing that I might enjoy. Although the name leaves something to be desired (honestly, it felt embarassing asking the guy at Wal-Mart for “Zack & Wiki”), it’s actually a fun puzzler with a challenging edge that you’d never expect from looking at the game’s kiddie oriented cover art. In the game, you are a boy pirate named Zack who, with the help of an oddly hovering monkey named Wiki, journeys to various settings in order to piece together the golden treasure of the intimidating yet friendly pirate Barbaros (all the while avoiding the aminelike pirate queen and her purple-outfitted goons). OK, the story’s a bit lame, the characters are cardboard-thin, and Wiki’s Japanese schoolgirl voice is grating, but I tended to forget that while gaping at the lush visuals and background music. Did I mention that the game is weirdly Japanese in a way that I can’t put my finger on? As in when Zack is in the presence of other living things, you can wave the wiimote and Wiki turns into a bell (?) — transforming whatever animal you’re next to into an object (??) which may or may not be useful in your quest. Weird and cool at the same time! The video below pretty much echoes my feelings about this gem of a game. (buy at Amazon.com).
My Bullet’s in the Gun
What’s rocking my morning? Check music critic Elisabeth Vincentelli’s great post on the songs that nearly made her Best of 2007 lists. Although all are good, my fave is “My Secret Lover” by a Danish outfit called Private. It’s a wonderfully synthetic, ’80s-tastic retro funk jam that would likely have the scissors of Project Runway’s Sister Christian in a frenzy. Listen and enjoy.
Which reminds me — whatever happened to Evelyn “Champagne” King?
Alias Smith and Jones
Steven Heller’s recent Design Observer rant over bloggers using aliases is less interesting for the post itself than the heated discussion it prompted. Heller’s basic gist is that a designer (or anyone) who uses an online nom de plume is either cowardly or behind the times.
I’ve always been up front about using my real name. Scrubbles only came into play because “The Matt Hinrichs Blog” sounds too unmemorable. Having a somewhat unusual, sometimes unpronounceable last name may be an annoyance in real life, but it’s an asset online (when it comes to commenting on forums or weblogs, however, only the first name is used). Although some may assume I use my full name for business purposes so potential clients might think (erroneously) that I’m related to the famous Kit Hinrichs, really it’s just me so that’s the logical choice. The name is unique and sticks out in a crowded field. And yet — if you Google my name the first result is the IMDb page for some actor whose sole credit is playing “School Kid” in Napoleon Dynamite. I’ve also discovered another Matt Hinrichs who blogs using his real name, weirdly enough — although any person with half a brain would notice that my blogging doppelgänger is an entirely different person. I really admire Steven Heller’s expertise and own a full shelf of his Chronicle Art Deco compilation books, his argument in this case is weak, weak, weak.
365 Days of Unrepentant Couch Potatoishness
Time once again for list of films I saw in the previous year. I counted 131 movies seen in 2007, with only five of them theatrical — which is about average. Not on the page is the fact that I rated each film on a scale of one to five stars. The bulk of what I saw fell into the 3-4 star range. United 93, Zodiac, Au Revoir, Les Enfants and an umpteenth viewing of Dinner at Eight were the only five star films. One star ratings I bestowed went to Spirit of ‘76, the unbelievably bad bio pic Valentino and two cheapo gay comedies which were most definitely not on my Netflix queue, Slutty Summer and Eating Out. The two star films mostly consisted of ’30s/’40s obscurities taped off the wee hours of TCM or DVD rentals Christopher forced me to sit through (Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd, zzzzz).
Tennis Injury
Today I invited my parents over to the house for lunch and to give the Wii a try. We played a few games of Wii Sports Bowling and they, of course, had a blast. Before leaving, my mom — an avid tennis buff — wanted to give tennis a spin. We were playing a game of doubles when she tried to do a far-reaching racquet swing, lost her footing, and took a tumble right there in my living room. Shocked and in distress, me and Dad went to her aid. She hit her head on the TV stand and had a big cut in her upper lip. After we applied a wet towel, my dad took her to the emergency room. I felt so guilty! Later that afternoon I called her up to find her in better spirits. She ended up getting seven stitches in her lip (the doctor said it was his first-ever Wii related injury), but even worse is that one of her front teeth fell out and the other one is loose. Now they have to wait until Monday to see a dentist. I was worried and super-apologetic to Mom, but she took it in stride.
Actually, this incident may have shook me up more than them. My parents are in their 60s, retired but still young enough to fully enjoy life. They’ve always been very loving and supportive of me and Christopher, which really compounded my broken heart at seeing her fall today. Needless to say, I don’t think it will deter them from further Wii playing since they like their fun. They love gaming and travel and routinely go to Vegas for Casino hopping. This year, they plan to go to Washington D.C. for the AARP conference along with a stay in Colonial Williamsburg. And in April they’re taking me to Walt Disney World to fulfill a dream I’ve had for decades to see that park. They’re gonna want to try out every ride with me, but that’s still a few months away. For now I’m delivering all my best wishes to Mom for a speedy recovery.
John Hockenberry’s Dirty Laundry
A must read: John Hockenberry’s scathing account of working at NBC’s network news division in the aftermath of September 11th. Depressing as hell, but tells me all I need to know about the TV news business. (via ArtsJournal)
